The world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, India, could release a new climate change plan as early as January, Grist reports, citing news from one of the country’s national business journals.
The plan could be unveiled when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India next month, and “is likely to include an ‘aspirational’ peaking year for India’s greenhouse gas emissions,” the Business Standard states.
“When the U.S. and China, the two largest climate polluters, announced an agreement to curb their emissions last month, the world’s eyes turned toward the third country in line,” Grist notes.
While it remains to be seen what “aspirational” peaking year India will choose, and how high its emissions will be allowed to rise, the timing of a January announcement “fits with what UN climate negotiators are hoping for,” Light writes. “Countries are supposed to announce their emission-reduction goals—their ‘intended nationally determined contributions,’ referred to as INDCs or NDCs—by March 2015.”
